Northfield by Johnny D. Boggs

Author:Johnny D. Boggs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical - General, Jesse, Bank robberies, James, Western stories, Biographical fiction, Fiction - Western, Westerns, General, American Western Fiction, Northfield, Historical, Westerns - General, Fiction, Minnesota, 19th century, History
ISBN: 9780843961034
Publisher: Leisure Books
Published: 2008-10-28T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LIZZIE MAY HEYWOOD

Pretend they’re shooting fireworks. I like to watch the pretty sparkles in the sky when it’s nighttime. Don’t you? I like to pretend. Usually. Pretending’s fun. Most times, I pretend I’m a mommie and my dolly is my baby. Sometimes we’re baby animals. I’m the mommie horse and dolly’s the baby pony. Or a mommie cat and baby kitty. Or a mommie rooster, which causes Papa to laugh, and a baby rooster. Or, without my dolly, I pretend by myself. I pretend I’m singing in church choir. I pretend I’m pouring tea for the ladies at the church. I pretend I’m talking to Mommie Martha. I pretend lots of things. I have to pretend today, too.

I heard the fireworks today, but it wasn’t nighttime like it was yester-night because I looked out the window in my room where I was playing with my dolly. Her name’s Martha, which Papa says was my real mommie’s name. Now my mommie is Mommie Lizzie—she has the same name as me; how can that be? I never knew Mommie Martha, but sometimes I pretend I did.

So, today, I played by myself in my room while Mommie Lizzie sat in the parlor where she worked on a quilt. She couldn’t let me help because she says I might stick myself and I’m just a baby, though I told her I wasn’t a baby, that I was a baby last year, but now I am five years old. I’m a kid. A little girl, like Papa calls me, though he sometimes tells me I’ll always be his baby girl, but I’m not a baby any more. Not a baby! Baby’s are four or stuff.

So, when I heard all the popping, I got excited, and I grabbed my dolly and ran to find Mommie Lizzie, and I yelled at her: “Fireworks! Fireworks! Let’s go see! Let’s go see!”

Mommie Lizzie, she put her stickpins down and rose, smiling, saying: “Lizzie, it’s not fireworks. Not in the middle of the day. See? And Independence Day has long passed.”

“Maybe it’s special fireworks,” I said.

Now we heard lots of fireworks, and Mommie Lizzie listened harder and walked toward the front door. “It sounds,” she says, “like corn popping.”

“What could it be?” I asked her. Then: “Let’s go see!”

She opened the door, which made the popping sound louder, and I tried to go down the steps to the edge of Third Street, our street, but Mommie Lizzie grabbed my arm and jerked me back. She was right, though. It couldn’t be fireworks because it was still not dark like it is when we go see the pretty sparkles and it couldn’t be special fireworks because I looked up in the sky and didn’t see any sparkles or things like that.

We heard some other noises, too, but they were too far away for us to understand. More popping. And then Mommie Lizzie got this terrible look on her face, and she brought her hand to her mouth and she gasped

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